The Morning After

This is an excerpt from my story about Danny. Danny is a seemingly normal high school student, except for one thing that makes him extremely different from his peers. As you'll soon find out, this piece is just one of the instances that show how his eyes have been opened, and how others in his presence have their eyes opened by him.

"The Morning After"


"Ugh," Danny sighed, lifting up his limp arm and letting it fall on top of his bedside alarm clock. 6:00.

It was Saturday, but the night before he had forgotten to turn off the alarm. Lying on his stomach, he turned his head towards the other side of the bed, where Becky lie still.

"Go to school, hon," she mumbled sleepily.

"It's Saturday."

"Mmm."

Danny turned over on his back, staring at the ceiling. There was no way he was going to be able to go back to sleep.

Four hours, he thought. Why couldn't he get some more sleep?

His brain hadn't let him relax until 2 AM that morning. Yet, there he was, awake again at 6. Danny knew he wasn't doing any good to his body.

His bedroom was small. A small cottage in his parents' backyard wasn't the grand place he'd always imagined he'd keep his family in. But it was a blessing, he often told himself. He drew a floor plan of the house in his head - five rooms, including the den/alcove. That old couch in the living room needed repair. The stuffing protruding from the right armrest reminded Danny of the environment he and his wife lived in.

It was far from prepared.

Danny stared at the TV sitting on his dresser. Cable, internet, and phone was not cheap.

The newspaper in front of his parents' garage popped into his head. He imagined it lying there, wrapped in a rubber band and plastic bag. The classified section opened up, revealing the employment ads.

Danny groaned. The sleepy look on his face became simply stressed. Pressure was building up and pushing down on the five-foot-nine teen.

Silently, Danny kicked off his blankets. In a tank top and boxers, he turned and sat sideways, letting his legs hang off the bed. He leaned his elbows on his thighs and with his hands on his face, inhaled deeply. Light was starting to filter in through the blinds. Danny's fingers ran through his hair as he shut his eyes tightly.

With a tired moan, he stood up wobbily. He hadn't been drinking the night before, but he felt as if he were recovering from a hangover. His stomach was in knots, and he knew his head wasn't where it was supposed to be. Besides, drinking didn't seem like something he would be doing anytime in the near future.

Exiting the bedroom, the bathroom door welcomed its owner. At first, Danny failed to turn on the light. He simply scratched himself and propped up his elbows on the sink counter, trying to see his reflection in the mirror.

Once the light was on, he noticed his usually endless blue eyes were a bit bloodshot. Was this how he'd look from now on?

He pulled the faucet and let the water run. The liquid gushed without ceasing. Running water was one thing that had always been consistent. Danny trusted it. He trusted that every morning, the faucet would turn on, and clean water would come out. It never randomly changed on him. It never decided to become mud one day, and water the next. Water was clear, and mud wasn't. Danny watched the water flow.

Finally, he decided to hold a cup underneath. As he sipped from the cup, he realized that something had changed. The water that never changed had taken on a new taste. Or had his tongue simply chosen to rearrange its tastebuds?

Suddenly, he caught a glance of the shower. The shower curtain looked different. So did the toilet. Danny rubbed his eyes. He couldn't put a finger on what exactly was altered, but there was something. It wasn't cleaner, nor had it faded. Everything had just taken on new identities, and Danny had no idea why.

Continuing to drink the water, he pictured his utilities bill. The shopping list on the refrigerator. A tax letter. They all symbolized future expenses.

A homeless man had been begging at the park Danny walked by the day before. Danny wished the five dollars were still in his pocket. He winced. How had he let go of money so easily?

The parents at the park had seemed flustered. Pushing kids on swings, kissing boo-boos, calling for their young ones that wandered astray. A little boy had offered a mud cake to Danny, which he'd politely refused. What was in that mud? Was that even safe for that boy to play with?

Danny's mind leapt to his schoolwork. College was expensive. Eighteen years was not a lot of time to save for school. Education is important, he told himself. Extremely important. Preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, college. Were the schools around here that great anyway? Flashbacks of preschool flooded Danny's memory. Plastic backpacks and bag lunches. Shopping for back-to-school clothes. Daycare.

His back hunched over, he turned and glanced out the bathroom door, at the pictures hanging in the hallway. Becky, in cap and gown, smiled back at him. Life took turns. Danny was planning on graduating high school, no doubt. Attending the senior prom as a freshman was no big deal. He still was going to graduate.

His eyes shifted to another picture in a bigger, more elegant frame. Becky looked amazing in her wedding gown, Danny thought. He cracked a smile. Everything had worked out in the end. But life still took turns.

Pictures of young Danny rested on his parents' mantle, inside their house. An appropriate place for parents to display their pride and joy. Danny had no mantle, nor a fireplace. Fireplaces kept families warm. Danny had none.

Water dripped from the shower head. Becky still made no noise, lost in her deep dreams. Danny sighed. Silence can be soothing or dreadful, he told himself. But which was his opinion? He knew he had no fireplace. Would having a fireplace make his future more certain? Would it keep a family warm? Or was that something else?

And now, as his world spun out of control, more questions filled his head. Every one he tried to answer simply led him to more questions. Although it seemed like he might be spiralling into an endless, dark abyss, he found it peculiar that he wasn't feeling it more. If it was worse, he'd feel worse, right? Was there a reason he wasn't more depressed?

Becky was the most amazing person he'd ever met. Danny would do anything for her. His heart sped everytime he saw her, and as long as he was with her, everything would be ok. His heart told him so.

The mirror summoned Danny to examine his reflection again. But this time, he saw that, like the shower and the toilet and the water, his face had changed. Perhaps, maybe it wasn't just his face that had changed. Danny stared himself down. At first glance, he saw the same thing he saw every morning: a curly-haired, baby-faced, youthful junior in high school. But as he gazed deeper, he observed depths he'd never noticed before.

Like a trigger had been set off, Danny burst into tears. As he sobbed silently, he asked himself why. Were these tears of joy, or sorrow? Or were they neither? Change was coming, the tears told him. They were to remind Danny of where he was, what he was, and WHY he was. Life was taking turns. But unlike the mud cake, Danny wasn't politely refusing anything. His head dropped down, letting emotion control his bodily movement. And as he stared blurrily down at the sink counter, salty drops rolled down his face, falling onto last night's two pink lines.